by Peter Seibel
-- A fantastic collection of interviews with 15 famous programmers. Contains some great history and insights on the field of "computer science."
-- Geeks, drugs, and deception. An entertaining look into the (fictional) lives of techno con artists, and how a recently-fired comic book artist get pulled into their inner circle.
"
-- Particularly useful reference when trying to eek out a few extra milliseconds of load times in older browsers.
-- Interesting tech, and somewhat engaging, but disappointing ending (or lack thereof.)
, by Neil Strauss
-- An engaging, first-person account on transforming from an urban writer into "Jason Bourne."
, by Cory Doctrow
-- A high school hacker fights the 'Department of Homeland Security' to reclaim American civil liberties after anti-terror tactics are taken to a new level.
-- Techniques-for, and the value-of sketching interactivity before developing products. Good ideas. OK book.
" -- About finding untapped opportunities in your market and repositioning yourself to capitalize on them. Easy to grasp; Longer then it needed to be.
" -- A thin book with some good best-practices, but a little disappointing. Perhaps it's JavaScript's fault, not the author's ;-)
" -- Good overview of usability issues in designing HTML forms, backed by examples and eye-tracking research. I bought the 
" by Marshall Goldsmith
-- Discusses interpersonal skills (and how to identify and fix them) that most commonly hold executives back in their career advancement.
"
-- Lesson: Cut the corporate B.S. and stop wasting your time. Focus only on what matters most.
"
-- Lessons on handling tough conversations: firing people, relationship problems, hostage negotiations (well, maybe not that last one.) Wasn't an exciting read, but I've been paying more attention to "turning points" in conversations since reading it.
"
-- Lessons in building reusable ("pluggable") Django applications. Assumes you know the basics of Django and Python.
"
-- I really enjoyed this one. Lots of suggestions and strategies for negotiating.
Details are still coming in, but it looks like the U.S. Government is hoping to make it more attractive for Internet Radio businesses to be run off-shore then in the States. The decision (like much Internet-related policy) creates a market condition that potentially pushes revenue and innovation to other countries.
“The new rules issued by the U.S. Copyright Royalty Board earlier this year prescribe rate hikes of 0.08 cent per song per listener retroactive to 2006. They would also climb to 0.19 cent per song by 2010.” [cnet]
The fees are high enough that many small players (where small==independent) will be forced to shut down. The irony, of course, is that broadcast radio continues to pay no fees at all (and to not play the songs I want to hear, which might be why they get the free ride.)
For more on the issue, see:
- Shaken Internet Radio Stations Face Specter of New Fees Sunday (Via washingtonpost.com.)
- D-Day Sunday For Internet Radio As Court Rejects Royalties Appeal (Via TechCrunch.com.)
- Court declines to postpone Internet radio royalty hike (Via ars technica)
- Court rejects Webcasters’ plea for relief (Via cnet.)
And of course, the blog post that almost saved the day:
